Marian Kihogo | Adorn London

I recently bumped into Marian at a Fashion Business Club meeting after having met her at LFW the previous season. It was her unique style and eclectic stack of bangles that initially caught my eye. Marian is a celebrity stylist and editor of her eponymous fashion blog, Marian Kihogo. We are delighted to feature Marian on Adorn London.

Five minutes with Marian Kihogo

Q: Marian, could you tell Adorn London about how you perceive jewellery as it relates to your style?
Jewellery for me is everything. I know it sounds melodramatic but it really is. If my house got robbed, I could manage to survive without my garments but I would probably be utterly lost without my jewellery. The pieces I wear either round my neck or wrist all relate to the fragments that make up my whole. We could all wear the exact same dress but still look distinct and stand out due to our different personal tastes in jewellery. I think our jewellery should be an extension of our personal style. Have you ever seen an authentic punk in casual dress with no studs, spikes or piercing? The metal they wear is an extension of who they are stylewise. I love how Diana Vreeland expressed herself through her jewellery. Diana was iconic for her wonderfully stacked cuffs. That was her signature; those exotic cuffs were innately Diana. If our clothes represent who we are stylewise, that style should not stop at our garments, it should be obvious in our jewellery too!

Q: I love the story-telling aspect to your style. You are well-travelled: which places have influenced and inspired you in terms of fashion and jewellery?
Wow, that is a gorgeous question, Juliet! I am intrigued by new places; I have a real wanderlust to see, taste and hear the new. On these trips I stumble on pieces off the beaten track that I’m drawn to, so I pick up a lot of my jewellery along my travels. Most of these are bought for next to nothing; I like to wear them with more expensive luxury pieces. The Serengeti and Zanzibar have inspired me in enormous amounts. I picked up some interesting brass, malachite and bronze pieces which have slowly become pieces of my soul. In the Senegambia (Senegal and The Gambia) region of West Africa, the women wear beautiful ornate and opulent statement yellow gold pieces made by local jewellers at celebrations. Those memories have unconsciously stayed with me and I find myself being drawn to artisan handmade gold designs. I am forever inspired by the varied jewellery coming from different countries and cultures in Africa.
A few months ago, I stumbled on a cuff in Topshop that looked like a piece that could have been sculpted in Mali. Africa is always inspiring jewellery on the catwalks and high street. I also adore artisan Thai jewellery. I am trying to find the time to visit Peru: their textiles and jewellery are breathtaking!

Q: Do you choose jewellery to match your clothing or does jewellery sometimes dictate what you wear?
No, my jewellery never matches my garments. I wear copious lashings of wristwear in no particular order or formula but it makes strange sense to me. I wake up and just throw it all on with no forethought or reason. In all honesty, I think I would struggle if I were forced to match my jewellery to my garments. That is my nightmare. My jewellery has to be left alone to do its own thing.
It does however inspire my outfits. Like the other day, I threw on my usual wristful of jewellery for the day – a mix of beaded cuffs, wide brass bangles and leather string friendship bracelets. Soon it had inspired me to wear this gorgeous large grey and amethyst batik print scarf I picked up in Ghana. It also put me in the mood to slip into a pair of burgundy leather Michael Kors gum wedge heeled boots.

Q: You have an amazing following on your fashion website: do you think the catwalk influences the way we wear jewellery?
Of course! Even if we are unconscious of it, it does affect and inspire us. You don’t even have to wear specific popular name brands of the moment for your jewellery to be influenced by the catwalk. The other day I started counting the number of women who had worn their jewellery with neutral, nude and white designs being the focal point. By the time I got home I had counted a total of 15 women.
The bleached, nude palette of Spring/Summer 2010 Catwalks is affecting what pieces are being thrown together, how they are worn and so on. Women are wearing lighter coloured pieces. I have also noticed that perhaps because of the Spring/Summer 2010 shows, all of a sudden people are wearing more gold layered unabashedly.

Q: From a jewellery perspective which shows did you find truly inspiring at LFW last week?
The show that really blew me away jewellery-wise was Mary Katrantzou! I literally wanted to run onto the catwalk and rip the pieces off the models! Mary is known for her oversized statement neck-plate/bib pieces. This season she outdid herself! It was epic brass traffic-stopping, super-large, neck-plate type necklaces. The press release stated the pieces had been made out of old furniture pieces from her mother’s Athens-based factory! Truly inspiring!

Q: Are there any designers that you would put into the ‘One to watch’ category in terms of jewellery collaborations and emerging talent?
I love what Zac Posen and Pamela Love did for Posen’s Autumn/Winter 2009 collection, jewellery-wise. Love’s Goth Romance slightly macabre sensibilities unexpectedly well worked with Zac Posen’s sophisticated designs. I think I’m intrigued to see what Love could come up for other designers.
British jewellery designer, Shaun Leane, creates remarkable pieces for the catwalk. He has created beautifully crafted and well acclaimed pieces for Givenchy and Alexander McQueen. I think Leane’s designs will be a byword for jewellery on the catwalk, just as Stephen Jones’s hats are for millinery.

Q: What item of jewellery would be at the top of your ‘wish list’ right now?
Golly gum drops this is hard as I have a jewellery wish list the length of the River Nile! I am having sleepless nights about Ileana Makri’s 18K gold charms from her ‘Musical Instruments’ collection. So think yellow and white 18 K gold tambourines, conga drums, guitars, maracas etc., wonderfully encrusted and detailed with varying coloured diamonds, rubies, blue sapphires, amethysts, orange sapphires etc. Those magnificent musical charms are haunting my dreams, where they catch the sun gloriously as they jingle on my wrist…